" Whatever it is, I cannot seem to pull off something as simple as dinner between the two of us. As you know, my first attempt ended with us eating pizza standing up (and her paying for her own slice). My second attempt was even worse: We spent most of the evening in an animal hospital. And then I very suavely added insult to injury by sexually harassing her on Max Friedlander’s aunt’s couch. She fled, in romance-novel vernacular, like a startled fawn. As well she should have: I’m sure I must have seemed like a teenager in postprom heat. "